LA COLMIANE, France (Reuters) – Primoz Roglic strengthened his overall lead in the Paris-Nice race by powering to victory on the seventh stage on Saturday, a 119.2-km ride from Le Broc.
The Vuelta a Espana champion took his third stage win in this year’s edition with a late acceleration on the final climb to La Colmiane (16.3km at 6.3%) to beat Swiss Gino Mader by two seconds.
Germany’s Maximilian Schachmann finished third, five seconds off the pace.
Slovenian Roglic now holds a 52-second lead over Schachmann, with Russia’s Aleksandr Vlasov in third place, 1:11 off the pace.
Sunday’s eighth and final stage is a 93-km ride from Le-plan-du-Var to Levens, after the initial course, a ride around Nice, was changed amid a weekend lockdown in some Cote d’Azur cities because of COVID-19.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
